What changes with digital is that you can sit at home and if you have a library card you can order any book, you never have to go anywhere. And if you could get every book you wanted free, why would you ever buy another one? That’s the question we had about it in our first meeting. … That is the danger. You could literally undermine the market for every author and for [the publishers]. … Obviously, there is some discovery through libraries. There’s also some ability for who people who aren’t ever going to buy books to read them and be a part of the conversation. We’ve always believed that the cultural contribution of libraries is important.

We believe in the cultural contribution of libraries and we think people who read but don't buy books are important, but we only arrange for them to borrow from libraries out of noblesse oblige and really they are all thieves.

Libraries are not a necessary evil. They are one of humanity's greatest accomplishments. I don't care if you think they're cutting into your bottom line (you are wrong about this, by the way), if you don't love libraries, I don't know what you're doing in a career related to books.

Maybe the publishing industry doesn't get this or something, but they do make money when a library buys an ebook. They do not, however, make money when people choose to pirate that ebook instead, because the library either couldn't afford to buy it, or is permitted to offer it only encumbered by DRM which makes it unreadable.

And when I want to read a book but don't yet know if I want to own a copy, I pretty much do choose to pirate stuff these days. Because my local library's written the whole thing off as a loss: the books are expensive, and no one checks them out because the process is a mess.

It's sad and hilarious that people associated with publishing are constantly saying that they've "learned from the mistakes of the music industry" - yet every major publisher seems to believe that DRM can prevent piracy. It can't! That's why the music industry stopped using it! That was the biggest mistake that they made.

Here's a recap for those individuals working in publishing who may have been out with a bad cold for the last fifteen years: The record industry threw massive quantities of time and money away on a technology that potential customers either hated or simply couldn't use, thus pushing them into piracy - which had the effect of normalizing the practice, even among people who might otherwise have had qualms about it! It was pretty dumb.

So they gave up on it, but not before building up levels of ill-will best measured in sieverts. Americans under the age of 35 react to the term "record industry" with a level of revulsion which one might expect us to reserve for "BP," "Halliburton," or "a company staffed entirely by deadly black mamba snakes."

Maybe what publishers feel that they learned is this: Becoming passionately loathed is a natural part of the life cycle of a media industry. There is clearly no way for English-language publishing to avoid this, so they're going big! Step two will be a redux of the RIAA's relentless campaign of lawsuits against frightened thirteen-year-olds and their parents' rent money.

The rainbow rose is a rose which has had its petals artificially colored.

The method exploits the rose’s natural processes by which water is drawn up the stem. By splitting the stem and dipping each part in a different colored water, the colors are drawn into the petals resulting in a multicoloured rose.

A lot of research was done to find the best cultivar for this unique coloring process, with the result that the Vendela Rose is the only cultivar that absorbs all the different colorants perfectly.

There are even legal threats in there. "Oh, I see that you are considering giving us money. Well, I hope you're not also considering clicking away to read our titles for free on a better-designed site run by amateurs! Because if so WE'LL SEE YOU IN COURT YOU LITTLE SHITS."

The scanlations have been here longer than you have, guys, I really don't think they're the problem. The problem is a combination of technological incompetence on your part and the artistically stagnant and increasingly-irrelevant nature of your product. So, like DC Comics, only with more UST between dudes.

I set up a blog for my Homestuck fanfic, which is about a character blogging YA book reviews, on which I just actually reviewed some YA novels. I'm living the dream. I don't know which dream it is. Maybe the one where a robot teddy bear flies a plane.

Ms. Friedman, you are a treasure to that internet demographic preoccupied with swordfighting lesbian schoolgirls (me), but this is bullshit. JManga was deliberately marketing towards people who didn't know enough about the internet to realize that the manga they'd bought was going to disappear on them.

On 2 September 1967, the fort was occupied by Major Paddy Roy Bates, a British subject and pirate radio broadcaster, who ejected a competing group of pirate broadcasters. Bates intended to broadcast his pirate radio station, Radio Essex, from the platform.

In 1968, British workmen entered what Bates claimed to be his territorial waters in order to service a navigational buoy near the platform. Michael Bates (son of Paddy Roy Bates) tried to scare the workmen off by firing warning shots from the former fort.

As Bates was a British subject at the time, he was summoned to court in England on firearms charges following the incident. But the court ruled that as the platform (which Bates was now calling "Sealand") was outside British jurisdiction, being beyond the then three-mile limit of the country's waters, the case could not proceed. In 1975, Bates introduced a constitution for Sealand, followed by a flag, a national anthem, a currency and passports.

I don't think any of the clients have ever claimed that their crimes took place in sovereign nations and then actually made a flag. Just the first part.

In August 1978, while Bates and his wife were in England, Alexander Achenbach, who describes himself as the Prime Minister of Sealand, hired several German and Dutch mercenaries to spearhead an attack of Roughs Tower. They stormed the tower with speedboats, jet skis and helicopters, and took Bates' son hostage. Bates was able to retake the tower and capture Achenbach and the mercenaries. Achenbach, a German lawyer who held a Sealand passport, was charged with treason against Sealand and was held unless he paid DM 75,000 (more than US$35,000 or £23,000).

The governments of the Netherlands, Austria and Germany petitioned the British government for his release, but the United Kingdom disavowed his imprisonment, citing the 1968 court decision. Germany then sent a diplomat from its London embassy to Roughs Tower to negotiate for Achenbach's release. Roy Bates relented after several weeks of negotiations and subsequently claimed that the diplomat's visit constituted de facto recognition of Sealand by Germany.

Following his repatriation, Achenbach and Gernot Pütz established a "government in exile", sometimes known as the Sealand Rebel Government, or Sealandic Rebel Government, in Germany. Achenbach's appointed successor, Johannes Seiger, continues to claim via his website that he is Sealand's legitimate ruling authority.

And

2007–2010: Sealand was offered for sale through the Spanish estate company InmoNaranja. Since a principality cannot technically be sold, Sealand's current owners plan to transfer "custodianship". The asking price is €750 million (£600 million, US$906 million).

2012: Sealand online casino is expected to be opened by late 2012.[dated info]

9 October 2012: Roy Bates, Prince of Sealand, died after suffering Alzheimer's disease for several years. He was succeeded by his son Michael.

So I'm picturing Roy and Michael Bates as Jake and Jade, and Achenbach and Seiger as Dirk and Dave. Just, like, invading the place every year for their birthday present.

Suddenly I have listened to this Florence and the Machine CD like five times, because of this.

I keep wanting to call them Florence vs the Machine. On some level I think that I view all encounters with all machines as being intrinsically hostile in nature. I should like, set up a camera in the kitchen to see if I subliminally narrow my eyes and grit my teeth every time I glance at the microwave.

It turns out that I will read unrelentingly grim milSF, if it is presented to me in the form of Homestuck fanfic about Sollux. This is like finding a zero-day exploit, right here.

(I identify a little too much with Sollux, despite his relatively thin characterization, because he is an ill-tempered programmer who hears voices; I even used to have a lisp. Though at no time in my career as a speech therapy patient did I choose to type in it.)

Who thought it was a good idea to make a shitload of Harlequin manga in the first place? Why does it comprise like 3/4 of the josei catalog? Does anyone under the age of sixty even read Harlequins? It just seems like a huge demographic mismatch.

The Italian's Token Wife (you know it is exactly this sort of behavior that got you guys stuck with Silvio Berlusconi for like nine years)

The Billionaire Boss's Forbidden Mistress (no one forbids the Billionaire Boss! Mistresses, that is. No one forbids him mistresses.)

Pregnant by the Millionaire (she should have held out for the billionaire)

Royally Bedded, Regally Wedded (or maybe whoever this guy is)

The Sheikh's Ransomed Bride (geez sheikh how many of those do you even need)

The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride (new nationality here, so this story must be completely different from every single one of the others)

The Millionaire's Pregnant Mistress (is this the same as that other millionaire-baby one but retitled? No, it looks like it's different.)

A Date With a Billionaire (she gets a look at his cell phone while he's in the bathroom and the address book is just "virgin one," "pregnant one," "forbidden one," so she walks out and calls up the cowboy. The cowboy is such a good listener.)

Mistress Bought and Paid For (goddamn we are purchasing a lot of fucking women in these stories, what the hell is wrong with Harlequin)

To Marry a Stranger (the stranger has an eyepatch, so yeah this is basically a manga, sure)

Marriage Scandal, Showbiz Baby! (the scandal is that the baby is a reincarnated vengeful alien ghost, right? Because it's manga. Right?)

Claiming His Pregnant Wife (this sounds like a tagline given to a murder by an awful local news station)

Public Wife, Private Mistress (that's generally how it works yeah)

Traded to the Sheikh (I'll bet it was the Spanish Duke initiating this arrangement, I never trusted that guy)

The Billionaire's Secret Baby (oh we all know the billionaire sucks at keeping secrets)

A Wife in Time (I'm unfortunately pretty sure that this isn't about time travel, how are these even manga)

Princess of Convenience (that doesn't even make sense)

The Stanbury Crown, Royally Wed IV - An Officer and a Princess (oh god so someone felt there needed to be three other manga about the royalty of someplace called Stanbury getting married over and fucking over? I bet there are white horses with frilly tack involved.)

Wife By Agreement (well, that's a pleasant first)

The Stanbury Crown, Royally Wed II - The Blacksheep Prince's Bride (there's supposed to be a space in "black sheep" you terrible prince)

The Stanbury Crown, Royally Wed III - Code Name: Prince ("dude that is the shittiest codename" "look do you want to have a goddamn frilly horse wedding or not")

Even very short distances. Maybe it would stress me out less if I just brought my tea paraphernalia with me. Plug the electric kettle into the dashboard, cool the water to exactly 180 F by pouring it between two travel cups, and so on. Actually, that's a great idea with no conceivable drawbacks, I'm totally going to do that.

Unrelated Homestuck stuff: Everything Is Worse With Reddit. I will fight the person who made that comment and everyone who upvoted it. Calliope died all alone and Roxy couldn't save her, and now they're getting to talk again! Roxy can wait a little longer to meet Rose, this is important stuff that's going on. I am defensive of little green skull monsters.

According to this old otf_wank thread, Aromaleigh, the company that made the eyeshadow I've been using, was putting toxic crap in its eyeshadow. The thread also said that it was shutting down, but apparently it's still there?

Anyway, I'm throwing those guys' eyeshadow out and using some no-brand stuff I got at the 100-yen store three years ago instead. I feel confident that that's safer.

I googled "wholesale mineral cosmetics" to see how much it would cost to actually assemble a Dwarf Fortress eyeshadow line - I'm not going to, but the answer is, "less than $200." This place, which was the first thing that showed up on Google, will sell you a 1-oz bag of eyeshadow for $11, and they've got the little sifter jars for $25 for 100. I could get the labels printed up at a place in town for $50, and then all that remains is to set up an Etsy storefront with a super-classy logo:

I found this website advertising its makeup as "gluten-free." Oh, yeah? Well my mineral foundation is 100% guaranteed not to contain the fat of unbaptized infants. No other line of cosmetics makes that particular promise. That means I win.

What I'm trying to say is that makeup doesn't ordinarily have any goddamn gluten in it. It's not a banana muffin.

This is in a "Wilderness Biome" nowhere near any kind of evil. It only attacks goblin invaders/thieves and ignores my dwarves. I'm not even sure if it's moving when a goblin isn't near it.

Is this some kind of awesome bug?

EDIT: My guardian betrayed me... EDIT 2: Necromancers. They found the goblins their kobold insider killed. 10% of the population died before I could react EDIT 3: 25% EDIT 4: 4 Necromancers dead. 3 Hammer Lords tantrumming. 50% dead. Still more undead roaming...how many more necromancers could their possibly be? EDIT 5: 70% dead. Entire squad of Axe Lords is dead. Only 3 of the 10 hammer lords remain. 0/6 sword masters, 1 swordsdorf. All marksdwarves are dead. All speardwarves are dead.

EDIT 6: 12 dwarves remain. The last Hammer Lord is now rampaging in the deepest levels of the fort. His old friends and many of their body parts rampage above. The remaining necromancers have not shown their faces.

EDIT 7: A carpenter has elected himself mayor. He stands alone in his bedroom. The undead howl and pound at his door. An additional undead siege has arrived to make things more FUN. 232 undead await. 1 dwarf is alive.

john196920022001: The only legal function ordained ministers have is performing marriages. I think this is the only issue where we need some kind of ordained officiant. I am already and ordained minister so I could perform a Pastafarian marriage if members are serious about the Pastafarian marriage issue.

Moral Minority: Only a pirate captain can perform a marriage ceremony, so you had better get yourself a cutlass, pistol, pirate regallia and a parrot.

john196920022001: That's fine if there is a provision available to do marriages. Is there some kind of official ordination to authorize Pastafarian pirate captains to marry? My main concern is to make sure the marriage is legal

Imber: What about the law that allows a ships captain to marry people as long as the boat is at sea? The only question then would be how long ago a Pirate Captain would have had to steal the boat to have it be considered his/hers. : )

evilbelgian: I think we honestly need a more realistic way to ordain our 'priests' than "sail the seven seas scavenging for loot". Still a formal ceremony would be awesome.

If you desire to thank me for the pretend internet magnanimity I show by sharing my important and serious thoughts with you, I accept pretend internet dollars (Bitcoins): 19BqFnAHNpSq8N2A1pafEGSqLv4B6ScstB